The Leader and the Sharpie

I’ve recently had the opportunity to do leadership training for 40 execs and managers for one of LA’s success story tech companies. This is a fairly in-depth, multi-month, multi-session program with multiple cohorts. As an executive coach and trainer, especially for a big, meaty initiative like this, it’s like walking into an Organizational Development candyland when it comes time to design the curriculum and content. There is so much amazing stuff out there about EQ, Feedback, Communication, Goals, Culture. Picking the exact stuff that’s exactly right for this client, and then delivering it in a way that is on point for them is an incredible honor. It’s complex and expansive and energizing.

To contrast that complexity, one of the participants shared the picture above in our Slack channel. She wrote the word “Pause” on her wrist using a Sharpie to remind herself to take a second before reacting, and it’s been very meaningful for her.

Such a simple and elegant way to synthesize the impact of a lot of training.

So I decided to put myself through a mental exercise (which I’m prone to do). If I had to distill all these months of design and training into a handful of essential leadership nuggets, what would they be? If I only had 30 minutes to deliver the message, what would make the cut? If I stripped away all the research and models and frameworks…